Hospital admissions and transfers consolidate into a single center

Asante Rogue Regional’s Transfer Admit Center will facilitate all bed planning for all three hospitals starting May 25 to ensure patients throughout Asante have beds when they need them and at the appropriate level of care.

“We’ve been working for more than 14 months to develop a systemwide Transfer Admit Center to improve bed supply and demand at each hospital,” says Staci Nevin, director of Nursing at ARRMC and project leader. “Knowing where we have free beds can help relieve critical capacity issues and expedite admissions and transfers as quickly as possible.

“COVID-19 upped our timeline a bit, but our team was ready and willing to take the plunge to ensure our patients get the care they need.”

The Asante Transfer Admit Center started managing the placement of all COVID patients in August 2020 and all inter-facility transfers last February. This past April it started managing all patient transfers from Providence Medford Medical Center.

Beginning May 25, Asante TAC will manage regional referrals from acute care facilities outside of Asante as well as direct admissions from community clinics and homes. Finally, on June 8, Asante TAC will manage all in-house transfers, including surgical post-op-to-inpatient beds, ED-to-inpatient beds and other in-house transfers.

The multiphased rollout ensures a smooth transition and gives affected teams time to learn new protocols and procedures and adjust as needed, Nevin says.

Nevin and the Asante TAC team, which includes house supervisors at the three hospitals, developed criteria for determining which hospital is the best fit for transfer patients at any given time. These criteria include capacity, capability and staffing to treat the patient’s needs and are always driven by physician order and decision-making, Nevin says.

When possible, consideration is also given to proximity to the patient’s residence and physician and patient preference.

A centralized TAC will help relieve critical capacity issues and equalize patient distribution throughout Asante, Nevin says.